<span>At the same time, exporters in the Caspian region have closed sales of June production and play a waiting game now intending to start offering July products only by the middle of the month. Given constant demand for semis from Iranian re-rollers, CIS mills hope the upward trend will persist and have trusted this bullish strategy to resellers before returning to the market. However, the latter report Iranian customers (both trading companies and producers) are not so optimistic about the future. Iranian traders stay careful in buying since local longs makers refuse to purchase the expensive square billet after the government interfered in price regulation in the domestic finished longs market. However, neither resellers nor traders are going to step back, so offers will obviously continue trending up. <br> Whereas June production of square billet from Ural Steel was available in the market last week, by now the sales have been closed. Market operators report about 50,000 t of the material has been sold at $650-655/t FOB (+$5-10/t in a week). Offers of July casting from the producer are expected to come in the second half of the month. <br> The Far Eastern market is still seeing a shortage of semis from Russian mills, which keeps prices from falling despite poor demand. Thus, Asian re-rollers are unable to buy cheaper material and, sellers believe, will have to accept suppliers’ prices. At present, only customers from Myanmar show some interest in billet, and traders expect Philippine and Vietnamese buyers will resume purchases soon. <br> The latest Amurmetall''s tender has been reportedly closed this week with a sale of square billet to be made in late June at about $650/t FOB. So, the supplier has managed to make up for losses suffered from last-week sale of a lot at prices by $15/t lower. As previously reported, EvrazHolding collected orders for June output in the second half of May and plans to start offering square billet of July production next week. <br> ( Source: <a href="http://www.metalexpert-group.com/"><span><u><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">www.metalexpert-group.com</font></u></span></a> ) </span>